The present invention relates to the management of television facilities, particularly for the purpose of tracking television programs stored, in recorded form, and being transmitted within, the facility, as well as programs being received and transmitted by the facility.
Television programs, prior to broadcast or transmission over a cable system, may be conducted over a wide variety of paths within a facility and between facilities. Up to the present, no system or procedures have been available to reliably monitor the flow of such programs in real time. As a consequence, those managing such facilities generally must rely on the assumption that all operating personnel have taken the necessary steps to route the programs in the desired manner. At present, one of the most feasible procedures for determining what has actually been broadcast or distributed by a cable system is to make an off air recording of all programs which have been broadcast or distributed to consumers. In other words, this procedure only allows the required determination to be made offline and hence not in real time.
The television industry has implemented several different computer systems and associated software designed to achieve specific objectives, such as the preparation of a log of programs to be broadcast or distributed. Some accounting programs have been developed which make use of manually entered data derived from the log of the programs intended to be broadcast as well as discrepancy reports from operators on duty at the time of broadcast and the viewing of off air recordings. In addition, some limited automation of on air programs has been attempted. However, to date, the capability of such systems is limited because, generally, they are not capable of automatically identifying the programs which are being routed through, or are stored in, a facility. Thus, the timely distribution of television programs to consumers, either by broadcasting or by delivery to a cable network, is for the most part, if not entirely, dependent on, and in most instances can only be verified by, the responsible operating personnel.